I HATE THE RUSSIANS

[Bernard Honig]

Why do the russians alwas get pissed if i invade thebaltic states :mad:

[Straha]

Hmm ... because they are not dumb?

Straha

[Stalin's Organ]

probably because the game is programmed to reflect the Ribbentrop/Molotov pact by which the Baltic States were recognised as being in the Soviet "sphere" by the Germans!!

So you're breaking your peace traty with them!!!!!

On a related note tho - I'm fairly conservative, so my games usually involve trying to invade England (which can be done - although I haven't managed to take Manchester yet!), and if the Sov's declare war then I'm toast, so I always set them to neutral.

[Stalin's Organ]

probably because the game is programmed to reflect the Ribbentrop/Molotov pact by which the Baltic States were recognised as being in the Soviet "sphere" by the Germans!!

So you're breaking your peace traty with them!!!!!

On a related note tho - I'm fairly conservative, so my games usually involve trying to invade England (which can be done - although I haven't managed to take Manchester yet!), and if the Sov's declare war then I'm toast, so I always set them to neutral.

[gorski]

The Russians do not invade because you DoW on the Baltic States. They invade when their war readiness hits 100%. While conquering the low countries and France, if you only DoW on the Baltic states, the Russians will leave you alone.

Gorski

[husky65]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organ:

On a related note tho - I'm fairly conservative, so my games usually involve trying to invade England (which can be done - although I haven't managed to take Manchester yet!), and if the Sov's declare war then I'm toast, so I always set them to neutral.

Airpower is the key to taking england, expend the Kriegsmarine ruthlessly to get your barges across the channel and use the luftwaffe to pound important units (any in London or Manchester, plus the RAF and Brit HQs), then smash them with ground attacks, but always focus on the objectives.

Keep an eye on the Russians and use spare MPPs to build a wall of corps in the east - remember it is a limited time demo, you don't have to hold for long if the USSR attacks.

[Stalin's Organ]

Thanks for that - yeah I get the impression that hte invasion system is seriously broken - it's simply unbelievable that the Germans couple put so man ytroops into England.

I did a paper on Sealion - did you know that hte Germans had to butcher the Rhine traffic toge the barges, making a HUGE dent in the internal commerce for all of Europe, AND the transport for the 2nd wave was going to be the transports from the 1st wave sent back to France!!

The survivors that is of course - the Germans had somethign like 25 or 30 DD's and Torpedo boats and 20 submarines for their "small fleet" - the Brits had 85 DD's and 60 submarines IIRC.

Plus the Transports would have to raodstead of the English coast for a couple of nights, and the brits had an effective torpedo bomber force in Beauforts and Swordfish that would ahve jsut massacred the lot.

The Germans were b----dy lucky they didn't try to invade - it would have been a massacre on the high seas!!

Definitely something not right about SC in that area!!

[DevilDog]

The answer that Hubert gave in another thread is that the German ability to transport all their troops in a seaborne invasion (just by saving up enough MPPs) is an abstraction representing a prolonged period of building extra invasion barges and landing ships, which they could have done in real life. The way it plays out though is that as soon as you conquere France you have plenty of MPPs for the invasion, so it feels like you threw a fleet of invasion barges together in one week. That's just the price of having the MPP abstraction. Hubert felt it was more important to have a fair range of flexability of options to enable players to "change history". And I agree. And it's really not that difficult for the Brit player to defend the homeland, as long as they don't strip it's defenses.

While we may think the German plan to cross the channel in those barges was laughable, that is only because the British took it so seriously as the ultimate threat to their national survival and threw everything into the defense of their homeland. The reason the Germans couldn't successfully invade England had more to do with the local overwhelming superiority of the RN than it had to do with their using barges for invasion craft. The RAF was too busy fighting for it's survival to have had much of an effect on the outcome of Sealion. If the Germans had mounted a night invasion, slightly ofsetting the British overwhelming superiority in naval forces, and managed to capture some supply depots early on (supply of the invasion forces would have been near impossible at best, which may have been the real reason the invasion was scrapped) then it may have succeeded.

On a side note, history as we know it has been completely whitewashed by the writers (for the most part) and by us (due to our 20/20 hindsight). Historians are wildly inaccurate on anything beyond dates and events, and even get those wrong at times. The reason for this is they weren't there and don't know what was going on behind the scenes. A leader may make a brilliant decision based on horrible information (brilliant if the information was true) and so lose the battle or war. Many times this doesn't get into the history books, and everyone just pretty much assumes so-and-so was just a total idiot. I just recently read "Crusade in Europe" by Eisenhower and it is incredible how different the war seemed seen through his eyes. For instance he stated that although they only had slight and circumstantial intel that the Germans would attack through the Ardenes in Dec '44, they thought that it would most definitely occur. Under orders from Eisenhower, Bradley positioned all his supply depots back behind the deepest estimated German ability to penitrate the American lines. This then, not bad luck, would explain why the Germans never overan any appreciable Allied supplies, and so failed in their offensive. And Eisenhower stated that he hoped the Germans would attack and come out from behind their defenses, as it would make it that much easier to destroy them. However, other than some strategic planning he didn't say anything to the battlefield commanders, who certainly were suprised by the German offensive. But the point is he foresaw the offensive and took steps to defeat it which eventually had a deciding factor on the battle. But in the numerous books I've read on the subject this is the first mention I've heard of it. And there were a lot of things like that in his book. I recommend it as very good reading.

In general, I feel books written by the folks who were actually there are much better than the flood of history books that are writen long after the event by people who weren't there. There are some exceptions I'm sure, and you do have to guard against the desire of some to rewrite their history so as to appear in a better light (like Montgomery). Interestingly enough, while blasting Monty for his revisionism, Ike backs him up by saying that it really WAS the plan to have the Brits attract the bulk of the German forces and thus allow the Americans to break out. However Monty wanted to be the one to break out and really tried, but fell back on the "we weren't supose to break out anyway, so we weren't really trying to" arguement when he failed.

Sorry to ramble and get off topic, but hopefully this post amused someone...

[ June 22, 2002, 08:48 AM: Message edited by: DevilDog ]

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by gorski:

The Russians do not invade because you DoW on the Baltic States. They invade when their war readiness hits 100%. While conquering the low countries and France, if you only DoW on the Baltic states, the Russians will leave you alone.

And this MAY prove to be their early undoing.

Lately I have tried the strategy of invading the Baltic States on the turn before France falls (... before Russian annexation) just to see what might happen. :eek:

Well, the Axis gets approximately 300 MPPs for conquering, and the Russian war-readiness goes to 80%, give or take a few.

To break the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact so easily may be a problem? Given the impulsive and land avid attitude of the Germans, this may be viewed as a historical what-if? that could well have happened along these lines. And the Russian response would have surely been muted due to lack of adequate preparation.

I wonder if their would be any value in a one-year restriction, so that Russia could ALWAYS secure the Baltic States?

Or, if it is better to let alternative history have its way?

After all, the Axis just cannot attack every minor in sight, lest the USA enter too soon.

In this case, Russian war-readiness only rises to 90-97% even AFTER Greece and Yugo is invaded.

Interesting dilemma.

[Wolfe]

Originally posted by Immer Etwas:

After all, the Axis just cannot attack every minor in sight, lest the USA enter too soon.

Actually if you don't invade England it seems to take an awful lot for the US to enter the war. IIRC, I once took the lowlands, France, and Sweden early. Then conquered Yugo; had Hun, Rom, and Bul join me. Invaded Greece, conquered it and then declared war on Iraq (USSR then declared on me). And the US was still neutral. Only after Spain finally joined the Axis cause did the US declare war. I essentially had all of mainland Europe (and the UK fleet on the ropes in the Med) in my grasp except for Russia. Ok, so that's a pretty big exception.

The US will usually not enter the war readily, atleast not in this particular campaign.

- Chris

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by Wolfe:

Actually if you don't invade England it seems to take an awful lot for the US to enter the war. IIRC, I once took the lowlands, France, and Sweden early.

And that is another Minor (Sweden) that might need some fine-tuning?

Why shouldn't Germany just take Sweden when they finish with Norway? :cool: They likely have a HQ and some powerful units at hand -- just continue on across the border, yes? The invasion of Low Countries & France could wait another turn if necessary.

Perhaps the SC-Final Edition has some alterations (... I agree with those who have suggested at least a Cruiser for Sweden), such as Germany receiving the MPPs from the mines. There could be a small convoy-route from Stockholm to Kiel that the Allies could intercept?

As to your other point, I too have noticed that USA SEEMS fairly nonchalant, though that may be different in the full game.

From the Demo, I have found that the Axis (... default settings anyway) CAN carry out some large scale Blitz-marauding, and essentially get away with it. :eek:

And taking the Baltic States means that much less land to over-run, AND makes Russia defend in an awkward manner -- Germans pressing from on top of them, and surging up from underneath.

[Wolfe]

Yeah, I do think the US' reluctance is due in large part to its low war readiness setting in this particular campaign. Germany has already taken Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Norway as well as declared war on Belgium/Holland and France, yet the US starts out at only 15%.

Russia seems to react nicely in the game though, as the original poster pointed out. And going down through Yugo, Greece, and into Turkey will also inspire their wrath, I've found.

It'll be interesting to see the changes Hubert has made.

But one thing that does seem to be missing is any kind of trade route out of western France. If the Allies park a number of subs off the western French coast after it's fallen into German hands, no MPPs are lost by the Axis. Wasn't there a decent amount of trade out of France for the Axis? Is Germany the only one who can play the sub attrition game? I wonder if you can set up trade routes with the editor?

And, yeah, the thing with Sweden (as well as easy Allied invasion of Italy) has been mentioned before. I believe it's being tweaked.

Speaking of trade I wonder if there is a way to simulate Switzerland trading with both sides? I'd guess not, but that would be cool. It would not only add to the game, but also discourage invasion. Something along these lines has also been mentioned for Vichy France.

- Chris

[Hubert Cater]

Many tweaks have been added as you've all guessed, more on that with the official announcement (not to worry, nice long list sitting on my desktop ready to go so nothing should be missed ) but to answer the US reluctance question, this is really a tough call since early entry is based on a lot of hypotheticals as seen in the game.

What I've tried to model is the actual reluctance of the US general population as a whole at that time with the actual events that fully drew the US into the war (i.e. PH as well as German Declaration of War on the US) as well as extreme situations both militarily and politically.

Again this is one of those "keep in mind you are only playing until may '41," type situations but what I wanted with the game system was to model potentially early entry by the US but not too early as to seem really ahistorical. So things like the invasion of the UK, or declarations of war against traditional neutrals like Switzerland, Sweden etc. could draw them in earlier, but standard play aggression really should not IMO. In most cases I've found that playing outside the historical declarations of war the Axis used will bring the US in prior to Dec 7h, '41 so hopefully that alleviates the fears

Hubert

[BloodyBucket]

You know, you could just scan that list and post it, Hubert. Only take a minute or two.